Siempelkamp has won the German Brand Award 2026, recognised for a rebranding strategy that reshapes how the wood-based panel engineering specialist presents itself to the world. The German Design Council announced the honor on June 25 during a ceremony at the Uber Eats Music Hall in Berlin, placing Siempelkamp among the standout names in industrial branding this year.
A Major Win Among Strong Competition
The Krefeld-based family business took the Winner Award in the “Excellent Brands – Industry, Machines & Engineering” category. The achievement carries weight: judges sifted through 1,676 entries before settling on Siempelkamp’s submission. The panel, made up of marketing specialists and industry executives, was tasked with identifying companies that “rethink brand management” through conviction, creativity, and strategic clarity.
From Single Brand to Unified Identity
Siempelkamp first unveiled its new branding direction in May 2025 at LIGNA, the world’s leading trade fair for wood-based panel technology, held in Hanover. The concept, branded internally as #WeAreOneSiempelkamp, marks a shift away from a single-brand structure toward a unified umbrella architecture spanning the group’s many divisions.
This isn’t a cosmetic refresh. The company has grown substantially over the decades, expanding from a modest workshop into a global leader in wood-based panel plant engineering. That growth, paired with deeper internationalization, left Siempelkamp managing a fragmented mix of sub-brands and visual identities. The rebrand was designed to pull those threads together.
Why the Rebrand Matters Now
Industrial companies with long histories often accumulate brand complexity without meaning to. Different business units evolve their own visual languages over time, and customers end up navigating an inconsistent experience. Siempelkamp’s leadership saw this as a liability worth addressing head-on.
The new umbrella brand also supports the company’s broader digital transformation, helping align systems, data, and platforms across the group. A cleaner brand structure, in other words, isn’t just about logos. It’s infrastructure for how the company operates internally and engages customers externally.
“With our new brand structure, we are carrying our past into the future. It represents a new beginning, an evolution through which we are shaping our strong traditions for the future,” said Jan Bender, Head of Marketing & Communications at Siempelkamp. He added that feedback from employees, customers, and partners has been strongly positive, noting that the initiative “encompasses far more than just a new logo and redesign.”
What the Judges Saw
The German Brand Award jury singled out Siempelkamp’s approach for bringing structure to a notoriously hard problem in engineering sectors: managing brand identity across companies that have operated independently for years. The panel praised how the new logo and design system give the brand technical clarity and visual continuity on the international stage, while still honoring the company’s heritage.
The Agency Behind the Campaign
Creative development and implementation were handled by FREUNDE VON UNS GmbH & Co. KG, a Düsseldorf-based brand culture agency that worked closely with Siempelkamp to translate 143 years of company history into a cohesive, forward-looking identity.
A Signal for the Industry
Siempelkamp’s German Brand Award win underscores a broader trend among established engineering and manufacturing firms: investing seriously in brand architecture, not just product innovation. For a company built on wood-based panel plant engineering, the recognition validates a years-long effort to modernize without erasing its roots. As #WeAreOneSiempelkamp rolls out further across the group’s global operations, the rebrand stands as a case study in how legacy manufacturers can sharpen their identity for a more competitive, digitally connected market.
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